Old Stuff

Well, today is Father's Day. My dad's been pretty melancholy lately for a variety of reasons, but I was sitting with him at dinner and he was watching Grand Ole Opry Live on some country station. He started talking about how it was too bad that he didn't know anything about music because he thinks he could have been a fair songwriter. I told him that you don't necessarily need to know anything about music to be a decent lyricist, and he seemed amazed. He thought that you needed to be proficient musically in order to write a song, or lyrics for a song.

A few minutes later, he brought up a yellow legal pad with some lyrics to a piece he called Wind & Sand that had some specific meaning to him beyond what the words actually said, and with a little revision/honing of language it could be pretty good. He intimated that he had seen himself as a novelist once when he was laid off and he wrote quite a few things "about life" as he put it. I know this happens with quite a few parents and kids, but the older I get, the clearer it is that my father and I are more alike than I had ever thought while growing up.

Anyway, this little exchange led me to go through some files of my own and I stumbled upon a folder entitled "book...maybe" from what had to be 2000. The document was in Microsoft Works 4.0, which confirms a little more just how old it was. Reading it, I see how 'ancestral' it is to my early blog posts. It's not terribly long, so I'll post it just for curiosity's sake.

More odd mixes of self-deprecation and arrogance, as you'll see. I was 19, and if you're wondering where on the Wyatt calendar that falls, it immediately precedes the Destini relationship.

Here 'tis:

So. I’m gonna start my book now. Or a journal. Or a journal that I want to get published. This is sort of like a “free-write” thing right now, where I’m just typing and typing and typing and not stopping and seeing what comes out. Basically writing down everything that I’m thinking of, thought for thought, as fast as I can. It might be kind of pointless, because who’s going to want to read this, really? No one. But maybe they will, because you never know what kinds of things people are going to want to read, ya know?

So this is going to be a kind of narrative thing in the style of Catcher in the Rye. Of course, I said that before when I started a book like this with Ben in junior year, and it really turned out nothing like ‘Rye - but hey - I have to start somewhere, right? It might just be a little life history with some happenings expanded upon a little bit, to make it more interesting. Right now I’m thinking I might try to email it to a publishing company or something. I don’t know if they have email addresses for submissions or anything, but I guess I’ll find that out when I try, huh?

Yeah. So I sort of lacked the ambition to really start on this project before, because, if you think about it - it really does take some balls to just “up and start” writing a book. Writing something is one thing - but starting it and knowing that you want it to be a book is something quite different. The pressure of staring at a blank page and needing to fill it- that’s all been well-documented. And maybe nobody is going to want something like this - all laid-out and straightforward. But - and I hate to use this as an example - if you look at the success of “reality-based” television programs like Survivor and Real World and Big Brother and all that, then you might think differently. I really wasn’t starting this out with that thought as my motivation, of course. Like I said - I started something like this when I was in 11th grade, and my life probably isn’t as exciting as The Real World is, but oh well. And I’m certainly not a proponent of shows like that.

I think they’re kind of stupid, and I don’t know why that many people watch them. Hmmm. And an argument against a book like this could be that the millions of people that watch those shows aren’t going to want to actually sit down and read something when they can watch it - Americans are well noted for their short attention spans, even on fast-changing visual stimulation like TV. So a book - any book really - but especially a book like this - maybe that wouldn’t play to them at all. Who knows? I certainly don’t. And maybe the people that determine the viability of publishing books like this are going to recognize the truth in what I just said and send whatever I send them right back to me with an attached message saying that it’s a stupid idea. Or - in all likelihood - they won’t send anything back to me at all. Oh, the hell with it. I think I should probably just get on with it and stop with all this speculative bullshit.


So. Here I am. Midway through the second page.

Alright then. So I’m 19. I may not be as worldly as Holden Caulfield, or I might be more so. I’m not sure. But I’ll do my best to give you some stuff you might want to read. It might be full of traditional teenage angst crap that no one really wants to hear about any more, especially given the fall in popularity of grunge rock in the late nineties and more focus on the shiny, happy people in boy and girl bands. But maybe not. Let’s see now. Where to start? In the other book I had going a few years ago, I started off rambling much in the same manner that I have done in the preceding paragraphs, and then I started from the very beginning - meaning that I gave the location and circumstances of my birth. So I think I might as well go from there again.

Hell - maybeI’ll just rewrite that thing up until the point where I stopped and then move on from there. That might be the easiest thing. It also might be a little cliche for something like this, but I don’t really care. I had like 27 pages or something. A lot of people that read it were pretty interested. So maybe I’ll just do that.

Okay then. I was born in the dingy little town of Jamestown, New York, in WCA Hospital. It was a cold, dismal day from what I hear, which fits in with the rest of my life I guess.

You’l lunderstand later why I said that. Oh yeah. It was August 15, 1981, in case you’re interested in details. Of course I don’t really remember any of that, so I think I’ll skip to the point where I start remembering stuff that was halfway important. Well...none of it’s really important, per se - but you know what I mean.

Alright. So I didn’t go to preschool, like a lot of other kids did, and I don’t know how that impacted my later development or anything, or even if it made any difference at all. When I was about 4, I went to this little thing called Story Hour at Falconer Public Library, where I met a few other kids.

I don’t really remember anyone specifically from back then, but I know from looking at stuff my mother saved from that Kristen Y was in that little group. Kristen comes into the story a little later, so you might as well remember her.

Oh yeah - Story Hour. So my grandmother pretty much baby-sat me during all this time when my parents were at work. My mom would drop me off at my grandparents’ on the way to work and I’d stay there until she got out of work and picked me up. So my grandmother would cart me down to “downtown” Falconer (it’s in quotes because...well, if you ever see it, you’ll know that it only has about 4 traffic lights and it’s pretty damn small) to Story Hour so I could be read to and entertained for a little bit.

The next “big event” was kindergarten. When my mother took me to “kindergarten round-up” at Temple Elementary School in Kennedy, NY (sort of like orientation I suppose) we met the teachers and some of the kids and stuff.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I think we saw one of the teachers being a little harsh with one ofthe kids - Mrs. Scholeno her name was - and my mother like stormed down to the main office and demanded that I not be assigned to her. Kind of funny when you think about it. Or maybe not.

Nevertheless, I ended up in Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s class. She was a very sweet old woman, probably about 4 feet tall or something. Anyway, she was pretty short, and I enjoyed kindergarten. It would be the last year that I even somewhat enjoyed compulsory education until around 10th or 11th grade. I went to kindergarten when it was still only half a day - like 8:30 to 11 or something - I don’t remember. But the important thing is that I was home to my grandparents’ house in time to watch Spiderman on television. I’m not going to mention some of the more embarrassing stuff I did while under the guise of Spiderman or He-Man. Sorry. Suffice it to say that I signed my name on papers like “Wyatt A.K.A. Spiderman” or “He-Man” and did stuff like that. That’s allyou need to know.

The next year I had Mrs. Vanstrom for first grade, and I liked her a lot too. We started to read stuff in first grade - simple sentences like “my dog likes to run” and so forth. I read in class a lot because I was fairly good at that and spelling and everything, but unfortunately I had a tendency to say “um” and “ah...” once in a while and when answering questions I would always start out that way - which I still do fairly often, so I guess I never really got over it. Oh well.

First grade was also the year I met Aaron C (he might have been in Story Hour, but if he was, I don’t remember) and I might as well mention this story about him not letting me play with his dinosaurs. Even though he doesn’t remember it, I do. Aaron is quite important to the story later on, so that’s why I brought him up now.

And by the way - no names have been changed to protect the innocent or the guilty. If they were, I’d change mine too, but since I’m not going to change my name, I’m not going to change anyone else’s either. Oh. So back then, I was pretty smart in just about everything - I was in the highest reading group and everything. That kind of success would continue pretty much up until the end of sixth grade.

After that, my math skills tailed off, or at least didn’t really progress, even though they put me in the advanced math group (basically, I skipped 7th grade math, along with a large handful of other kids and went straight to what New York State calls Course I, which is algebra stuff).

But getting back in the spirit of chronological order, second grade was a bit worse for me. I liked the teacher - Ms. Swanson, who is regrettably now deceased - alright, but I had Mrs. Bower for reading, and I was convinced that she was a witch. I don’t remember why, but I thought she was. I would fake stomach aches to stay home, and that year, my attendance was pretty bad. I got pretty good at faking sickness though, and could get myself to throw up without too much trouble.

Third grade. Mrs. Joy. Had her for a regular teacher and also for reading. I liked her too. But basically I liked all my elementary teachers and they liked me because I was pretty smart and I wasn’t too noisy or bad or anything. I “behaved”. This element of my character endured for quite a few more years, until I developed the biting sarcasm and dry wit that I exhibit so often today. But back then I was pretty good. Needless to say,the fact that I was a good kid and that I was pretty smart - those qualities did not endear me to a few peers, and I suffered some backlash taunting from the future jocks and potheads of the world. Maybe that’s an unfair statement. Oh well.

* * *

Coming back now after a little time away...I ran out of steam a little bit...pathetic, isn’t it? After only 4 pages? Yeah. Having my doubts now. You see, I have class again tomorrow for the first time in about 3 months. It’s August 27th today, and I have class at 9am. And I’m getting a little .... I don’t know...? Hesitant maybe? I don’t know how often I’m going to be able to work on this in the near future, or even if I’m going to want to. I just started this thing today, on a whim, and wrote a few pages. And now I’m already running out of gas, so to speak. But at least now it’s on my computer - saved - and not on notebook paper. So it’ll take a few more steps to get rid of it this time. Well now I’m just rambling. This is bad. Oh I don’t know - I think I’m just going to talk about what I want to talk about now. I’ll re-order the whole thing later if I want to keep the chronological continuity thing going. But right now I think I’m just going to .....go....

I write a lot of emails...a lot of them are depressing and rather pointless - kind of like this book....you might notice my reliance on ellipses. You might even get tired of them. But I’m trying to let you inside my head, in a way - and to let you know where I actually trail off. And I think they’re better than just fading away with stupid words. Better stupid dots than stupid words, you ask? Well, yes.

But anyway...emails. Yes. I write a lot of emails to people, and it’s like my therapy - getting it down and reading it in text form. I know that once it’s down there that it doesn’t carry the same weight as it does in my mind - I mean like when other people read it, I don’t think that they can truly understand the way that I’m thinking when I’m putting it down, but I have the need to present it to them anyway - for some unknown reason. And I guess that’s the reason that I don’t have a journal. Because if I had a journal, I’d probably just show it to people - stuff that I wanted them to read. And then it’s not really like a journal, if you’re going to show it to everyone.

Right? I don’t know. I guess that’s what I think. Better for me to put it down in this form (and I don’t know if I’m really even going to submit it to anyone - but I’m almost sure I’m going to let people read it) and let everything go and let everyone read everything - not just the stuff that I want them to read. So if you are reading this - I mean YOU - please remember that last part when you read the other stuff that might be in here.

It might not be all good - in fact it’s probably not. Just like all the stuff that I’m going to put in here certainly isn’t putting me in that great of a light. Nobody’s perfect, even though I used to think - a long time ago - that I was pretty damn close...ha. Yeah.

So maybe this is going to be like an open letter to everyone I’ve ever known and has made a considerable impression on me. Look at it that way. Or maybe it’s a suicide note for when I decide to get a gun and pull the trigger. Ha. Who knows? It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. What do you think everyone’ll say if they read this and I’m gone?

“What a bastard!”
Maybe “Hmm.”
Or even “Oh well. He wasn’t that well-adjusted anyway. Maybe it’s better that way.”

Well, probably not. But you never know.

I’ve been told by a few people that when they read the stuff that I write, they can hear my voice saying it - they can hear me in their minds’ ears. (Odd expression isn’t it? The usual expression is, of course, “the mind’s eye”. Okay, maybe it’s not so odd. Nevermind.)

That’s another thing - might as well get into that now too. I hate it whenI’m having a serious discussion with someone and they start to say something and then they catch themselves and say “nevermind” or “forget it”. It bugs the hell out of me and I can never seem to let it go. Some people can, but not me. It eats away at me, and I just know that the something they’re holding back is something vitally important to my understanding of how they really feel and what they’re really thinking. It just had to be. Or so it seems.

Hmm. I just visited a few websites, and as time moves on, I’m getting a little less hopeful about this thing actually making it to the marketplace at all. It seems that you can’t actually just submit something to a publisher. It seems that you have to have some sort of literary agent first before you get anywhere. And then your literary agent makes the actual submission to the publisher. So this is going to be kind of complicated if I actually finish it and send it off.

_____

And that's all there was. I guess I was discouraged to the point of not continuing, or probably I was just as lazy as I am now.